Monday, January 16, 2012

Joan Rivers Gets Back on the Manhattan Real Estate Merry-Go-Round

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Back in May 2009 trash-talking octogenarian comedienne Joan Rivers heaved her mansion-sized New York City triplex penthouse apartment on the market with a hefty hefty hefty asking price of $25,000,000.

At some point, we're not sure exactly when, Miz Rivers took her posh penthouse pad off the (open) market. Howevuh, the sassy senior recently pushed the terraced 5,190 square foot spread, perched grandly atop a limestone-clad 42-foot wide Horace Trumbauer-designed townhouse building in East 62nd Street, back on the market with an notably higher asking price of $29,500,000 and this time, hunties, the listing includes a floor plan (above) for all us floor plan addicts to drool over.

By Your Mama's count, which may or may not be an accurate assessment, the three floor penthouse has 3-4 bedrooms (the top floor office is serviceable as a fourth bedroom), 4.5 bathrooms, 2 staircases, 2 mezzanine balconies, more than 20 closets including a cedar walk-in and another just for the china, 5 fireplaces, 2 itty-bitty but windowed kitchens, a couple of planted terraces with oblique Central Park views, a voluminous double height entrance hall far larger than most Manhattan studio apartments, an 800-plus square foot formal living room with soaring 23-foot ceiling, and a comparatively tiny—let's call it intimately scaled—formal dining room.

Since this is our last day in New York City before we wing our way back west and we're starting to run short on time, we're going to refrain from commentary about the unquestionably wonky and awkward spatial moments—i.e. access to the lowest level is via a narrow stairway in the laundry room off the mid-level kitchen—and instead let the children duke it out over the layout, decadent day-core and (higher) price.

Because the penthouse is a condominium as opposed to a co-operative, the buyer need not court a persnickety co-op board and the building rather surprisingly, as per listing information, allows a minimum 10% down payment. Maintenance, common charges and taxes add up to a considerable $20,100 per month which means it takes a quarter million a year for Miz Rivers just to pay the monthlies. Beehawtcha may still be working her much nipped and tucked tail off in the Business of Show, but with those sorts of expenses, no wonder she wants to sell this place.

Current online listings includes only a couple juicy photos of the decidedly opulent and heavily gilded penthouse but marketing materials from 2009 included a few more that can be seen here.

30 comments:

Anonymous
said...

I love Joan, however if it didnt sell before, why the higher price? I think it has to do with the Marjorie Post/ Uziel property going on at the same price perhaps?? The post property is much more desireable..

It looks like the 2 bedroom and living room level is completely separate - no private stair nor elevator. That's fins for guests. Also, for the master bedroom, one walks through a building stair across a mezzanine to get to a WIC. Otherwise, a pretty interesting apartment plan, but a little thick with frosting for my taste.

7:18. Watch Joans movie about her life, A Piece Of Work. Its very interesting, and she makes no apologys for her taste in the movie, or anything else. She has worked her entire life and has earned it, good taste or bad. And lets face it, her bad taste in comedy has worked well for her.

The master bedroom has its own walk-in closet -- the mezzanine leads to the CEDAR walk-in, presumably where one stores one's old faces. No disrespect to Miz Rivers though -- Fashion Police is a guaranteed bowl full o' laughs on my dee-vee-arr when the huzband and baby child have gone to bed.

Ms. Rivers bought a country place in Connecticut a while back on which she had a redo executed that didn't go over so well with locals, but sadly this is common celebrity stuff there now. Maybe she's spending more of her time there, assuming she still owns it.

Not long after she bought it, I found myself in line right behind her at a local bookstore. She was expensively dressed, demanding, rude to the counter clerk, short, alarmingly knock-kneed, and - the plastic surgery, when seen up close, was tragic.

She was being dogged that day by a New York Post reporter who had followed her to CT after she'd allegedly minorly stabbed a rental car clerk with a pen that very morning in Manhattan, so this was not a good day in Joanland. Said reporter collared me outside the bookstore, which I had departed first since it was clear that mere mortals were not going to get anywhere until she was dealt with. He identified himself, showed a press I.D., and asked me if she was still in there. I don't know why, but I said she had left.

I liked Ms. Rivers' standup very much back in the '60s, but the ruder and meaner she got over the years the less I thought of her. Rude and mean is really funny to lots of people but it's just not my thing. You could argue that she was being hounded in a karmic sort of way, after how outright awful she has been both onstage and in private life to many people. But when you see her in person, she's just plain old, old and cranky and miserable. I think it was her age that made me mislead that reporter.

Suzy darling, your info is... how do I put this delicately? Flawed. We locals don't care a whit about her home. It can't be seen from the road. How on earth should we care about something that doesn't impact us in any way? It's still on the market as you can see at the link. Every time I've come into contact with her, she's been at the very least, pleasant and on occasion, hilarious.

The house itself, 1 East 62nd Street, aka Tee Alice T. Drexel Residence, is written up, with floor plans (but not of Ms. Rivers' apartment, in American Splendor, The Residential Architecture of Horace Trumbauer by Michael Katherens.

As for Ms. Rivers' penthouse: it merits a 10 page spread of text and incredibly lush pictures in New York Apartments, Private Views by Jamee Gregory.

If you like apartment and/or floor plan porn, and if you're reading this, I assume you do, both books are well worth the expense.

Joan Rivers owned a beautiful southern colonial house on Ambazac Way in Bel-Air next to one of the Bel-Air Country Club's fairways. She may have lived there with her late husband, Edgar, who tragically committed suicide.

My fraternity brothers and I met her once when we were in college, telling her that we just saw Heidi Abramovitz (one of her fictional characters) in an elevator. Joan quickly asked with a grin, "Was she on the floor with her legs open"? Classic Joan!